Lost in Suburbia: Is my oven trying to kill my family?

One of the features of our new oven that I was particularly excited about was the self-cleaning function.

Tracy Beckerman

One of the features of our new oven that I was particularly excited about was the self-cleaning function.

Gone were the days of wearing a gas mask while the spray-on oven cleaner filled the house with toxic fumes and punched holes in my lungs. Into the trash went the rubber gloves and radiation suit I had to wear while I kneeled and scrubbed the glued-on pesto marinade and tomato sauce splatters from the walls of my oven. No longer would my children call me Cindermomma and happily sing “Whistle While You Work” while I glared at them from my sweaty heap on the floor. I was freed from oven-cleaning purgatory.

Or not.

After a particularly messy dinner of grilled steak teriyaki one night, I thought it would be a good idea the next day to give the self-cleaning function a test drive.

In the beginning of the cycle, everything seemed to be going along swimmingly. The oven clicked and purred. The lights flashed “Cleaning on.”

With my free time, I brewed a lovely cup of decaf coffee to enjoy while the stove cleaned itself.

But soon I noticed that the house had become a little murky. The smell of smoked meat wafted through the house and then, suddenly, clouds of smoke billowed from the sides of the oven door and all the smoke alarms in the house went off.

“Stop, drop and roll,” yelled my daughter, as she had been instructed in the school fire drills. She grabbed a dish towel, ran it under water and threw it over her head.

“Save the goldfish,” yelled my son, scooping up the nearby tank.

“Ruff, ruff,” barked the dog as he did a military crawl across the family room floor and then escaped through the back door. Clearly, it was every dog for himself.

“It’s not a fire,” I assured them as they all ran out of the house. “IT’S THE SELF-CLEANING OVEN!”

I grabbed a broom and knocked all the smoke alarms off the ceiling, and then ran around opening every window and door in the house.

Then I went to the oven and hit “cancel.²” The flashing light changed from “Cleaning on” to “LOCKED.”

“Locked? Are you kidding me?” I yelled at the oven. I was at the mercy of the self-cleaning function. I kicked the oven and yelped in pain. Now I had smoke inhalation AND a broken toe. Cursing and hopping, I went to the back door to get some fresh air.

The kids, the dog and the goldfish stood outside the backdoor screen peering in at the smoky house and the crazy oven-cleaning lady.

“You can come back in,” I assured them. “It’s safe.”

They shook their heads

“It smells like meat,” said my daughter. “Meaty smoky meat.” She made a face. “I think I’m gonna become a vegetarian.”

After several minutes, the smoke had thinned out enough that everyone felt it was safe to go back inside.

I tried to look on the bright side. The house was cloudy with smoke. Everything smelled like meat. But at least my oven would be clean, right?

When the cycle was finally finished, I threw open the oven door and looked inside.

Except for a small pile of ash on the floor of the oven, all of the teriyaki remained, and was now charred and welded to the walls. I tentatively took a sponge to it, hoping it would just slough off. It didn’t budge. I slammed the oven door shut.

Sweating, smoky, and limping, I emerged from the kitchen.

“So, Mom, what’s for dinner,” the kids asked.

“Takeout.”

Tracy Beckerman’s book, “Rebel without a Minivan” is available online at www.rebelwithoutaminivan.com and Amazon.